Today was the day Gordon Brown’s chickens came home to roost. In his last Budget in 2007 he proclaimed himself as a tax cutter. At the Despatch Box he announced he was cutting the 22% tax rate to 20% to loud cheers from the Labour back benches. But it was a deceit. He neglected to tell Parliament that he had also abolished the lowest tax rate of 10%, thereby increasing the taxes of the poorest 5+ million citizens.
Then we had a period of denial that this was even a problem (from the party which claims that looking after the poorest citizens in the UK is in their DNA). Slowly, the Labour Party woke up to the deceit and over the last few weeks Brown has oscillated between denial & dither.
But, today we had wholesale retreat. His Chancellor, Alistair Darling , sent a letter to the Chairman of the Treasury Select Committee ( see here Mcfall letter) which is effectively wholesale capitulation to pressure from his back benchers led by Frank Field. We have still to see the details of how this issue is going to be fixed.
We now have the extraordinary situation where the poorest citizens will be paying increased tax for several months while the Government figures out ways to give it back to (some of) them.
This is an episode which will define many citizens perceptions of our P.M. If the London & local elections reflect these perceptions then today may be the beginning of the end of Gordon Brown’s premiership.
1 response so far ↓
DAFT // April 23, 2008 at 2:12 pm
We have a simple DAFT solution for Mr. Brown’s problem: Use the extra 10% of poor peoples wages to buy them custard, cake and Corona’s. Who knows, Labour might even pull off another term if they can pass this one off.
The DAFT Party of New Zealand are offering a 0% personal tax rate if they win seats in the NZ general election this year. Mr. Brown could take a page out of our book.
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